


Sleight of Hand

by jessalae



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: 4+1 times, Eliot Waugh's Canonically Huge Dick, Fantasizing, Kid Fic, Masturbation, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Multi, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27333142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: 4 times in the mosaic timeline Quentin and Eliot jerked off separately + 1 time they jerked off together.
Relationships: Arielle/Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 20
Kudos: 94





	Sleight of Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you as always to my lovely beta, Sylph. <3

|1| 

“Fuck,” Quentin says, tossing the blue chalk into the chalk bowl. It breaks in half on impact. “ _Fuck_. God.” He grinds his teeth, wrestling with the urge to scream into the air. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

“Good idea,” Eliot says. He’s frowning at the pattern they created, which doesn’t even _look_ like anything, god, why are they even _attempting_ this. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

Quentin gives him a look as he stands and stretches out his aching neck. “I dunno. As long as I want to be?”

“Yes, fine, but is that five minutes? Twenty? An hour?”

“I’ll be back when I’m back, Eliot, don’t worry about me.”

Eliot sighs. “Fine. But can you do me a favor and knock when you get back? I’ll yell if it’s safe for you to come in.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” This weirdass conversation is almost as frustrating as the damn puzzle.

“God.” Eliot rubs his forehead with his long fingers. “Because I’m planning on jerking off while you’re gone, Quentin, and I don’t want to inflict the sight of my terrifyingly large cock on your poor innocent eyes.”

Quentin chokes on absolutely nothing. “Jesus. Okay. Didn’t really need to know that.”

“Well if you’d take a hint, I wouldn’t have had to put it like that,” Eliot snaps. “I only have one pair of socks, I’m not going to leave one on the doorknob and risk some squirrel running off with it.”

“Still don’t think you had to put it like _that_ ,” Quentin says. “I’ll knock when I get back. Have fun.” Was that a weird thing to say? It felt weird. “Or whatever.” 

He turns and strides for the edge of the clearing before he can make things even weirder. It’s a gorgeous day, warm and just the right amount of breezy, and when he gets in among the trees the dappled light makes him feel calmer right away. There are birds twittering to each other high above, the rustle of some kind of small fuzzy woodland something in the underbrush. Quentin wishes he wasn’t so frustrated by this impossible quest so he could actually _enjoy_ his time here.

Still, the walk does what he wanted it to do, the tension draining out of his shoulders and neck as he meanders through the forest. He hears the river rushing long before he sees it — the water must be high today, from that rain that fell all fucking day yesterday — and saunters towards it, breathing in the clean scent of running water and damp leaves.

One of the big boulders that lines the riverbank is warm and dry in the afternoon sun, and Quentin stretches out on it like a cat in a sunbeam, smiling to himself as the heat seeps through his t-shirt. The puzzle hasn’t stopped being fucking awful, but the awful feels a little further away, out here with the sun and the breeze and nobody around.

He lets his thoughts drift a little, and maybe it’s the power of suggestion or whatever, but as his mosaic-related frustration melts away, he realizes that he’s been holding onto, uh. A slightly different kind of frustration. They’ve been here a week, and yeah, it’s not uncommon for Quentin to go that long without getting off when he’s fixated on something, or when he’s feeling like shit, both of which have been extremely true. But taking the edge off can help, sometimes. So. Maybe Eliot’s got the right idea about what to do with his downtime.

Quentin sits up long enough to look around and confirm there’s nobody else here, then gets comfy and lets his hands drift downwards. He rubs himself through his pants first, letting his arousal build slowly, warm and soothing like the sunlight. Once he’s at least half hard, he unzips his pants and gets a hand into his underwear, teasing along the length of his dick with his fingertips, going for the spots he knows will make his skin tingle and his breath catch.

He’s just about all the way hard, ready to really start stroking, when his meandering brain floats over to thinking about Eliot. My terrifyingly large cock… Quentin snorts to himself. Eliot’s great, but his ego is off the fucking charts. Quentin’s seen Eliot’s cock, and he’d remember if it had been huge, that fact would have seared itself into his memory no matter how fucked up on wine and emotions he’d been. Not because it would have terrified him, but because. Well. Quentin likes ‘em big. He doesn’t remember, so Eliot’s probably a normal size, just like the rest of basically everyone on earth.

_But what if…_ a tiny corner of Quentin’s mind wheedles, as Quentin wraps his fingers around his dick for real and starts jerking himself, finding a steady rhythm. And it can’t hurt, right, fantasies are fantasies, so: Quentin imagines a really large cock, thick and long and rosy pink at the head. Big enough that Quentin’s fingers can’t quite wrap around its girth. Big enough to make his jaw ache just looking at it, make him really work to get more than just the head in his mouth. If _that’s_ what Eliot was working with, hidden under those perfectly-tailored slacks, _that_ would be worth bragging about. A dick like that, surrounded by the same dark curly hair that covers Eliot’s chest, big enough that even Eliot’s huge hands don’t make it look small as he strokes it, getting it ready to stretch Quentin open at one end or the other, he’s not picky—

It’s been a week, so it’s not actually surprising that Quentin comes fast. Like, really fast. So fast he wasn’t even expecting it. One second he’s pumping himself quickly but not feverishly, thinking about what if Eliot’s dick was actually that big, what if Quentin could bend over their stupid rickety table and get fucked by a monster cock to calm himself down between unsuccessful patterns instead of going on walks, what if he asked and Eliot said _I don’t know if you can take it_ and Quentin got to prove to him that yeah he absolutely could — and the next second he’s swearing, his eyes flying open, trying in vain to pull his shirt up and out of the way as his orgasm hits him like a train and he comes all over his stomach.

“Shit,” Quentin mutters to himself, mostly about the mess on his shirt. A quick cleaning charm takes care of that, fortunately. His heart rate is easing its way back to normal, and now that he’s gotten over the shock, oh, yeah, orgasms do feel good. His muscles are looser than they’ve been in days, his skin pleasantly sensitive. Okay. If they’re here for much longer, he’ll have to work jerking off into his daily routine. It’ll help keep him from biting Eliot’s head off, if nothing else.

By the time he wanders back to the house, the door is open, so obviously Eliot’s done. He knocks on the doorframe anyway, just to be polite. Eliot looks up from where he’s meticulously trimming his fingernails with Quentin’s tiny pocket knife.

“Good walk?” he asks.

“I feel better,” Quentin says, by way of apology for being a snippy asshole earlier. 

“I thought of another pattern while you were out,” Eliot says. “I started drawing it out before I noticed this hangnail, figured we could fill in the rest as we went.”

Quentin sighs, but it’s more of a relieved sigh than a resigned one. Coming up with the pattern is definitely the harder part. Setting out the tiles might make his back kind of sore, but at least he can let his mind wander and think about happier things. Like relaxing on sun-drenched rocks. Curling up by the fire with a good book. Broad hands grabbing his hips, holding him in place, all the better to impale him on a fucking huge cock.

Quentin blinks, and shakes his head, and keeps laying out his row of red tiles. He glances at Eliot, just for a second, who is humming under his breath, sorting through a handful of blues and greens. There’s literally no reason for Quentin to get all up in his head about any of this. Fantasies are fantasies, Eliot has no intention of fucking him, and even if he did, his dick can’t be _that_ big.

_But what if..._

|2| 

Quentin watches Arielle’s hips sway their way into the forest and off towards the rest of her delivery route, biting his tongue a little to remind himself that she has things to do, he can’t just. Run after her and tackle her into the bushes. Even if he _really_ wants to. Even if she did deliberately turn him on seconds before leaving, a devious little smile on her full lips, kissing him on the cheek and whispering in his ear something she knows, she _knows_ will be like an instant arousal button for him. God, she’s the worst. And the best.

Finally her long red braid is no longer visible between the tree trunks, and he can turn on his heel and race for the house, hoping against hope that Eliot hasn’t left to go fishing yet.

“Hey,” he says, bursting in through the door. “Can we fuck?”

“Ah,” Eliot says a bit awkwardly. He’s sitting at the table, basket of bait packed and ready to go, tightening the last knot to attach his hook to his fishing line. “I just finished jerking off a minute ago.” He grimaces. “Sorry.”

“Oh,” Quentin says, crestfallen.

“If you can wait half an hour,” Eliot offers, then his eyes drift to the front of Quentin’s pants. “Hm. Maybe not.”

“Yeah, no,” Quentin says, fidgeting. “Um.”

Eliot stands to fold Quentin into an embrace. “I’m sorry, Q, I thought since you’d been with Arielle all morning, today probably wasn’t in the cards. I could suck you off?”

“No, you were all ready to leave,” Quentin says. He does shift his hips a little, pressing his erection against the heat of Eliot’s thigh, but who wouldn’t in this situation. “I don’t mind getting myself off.”

“If you’re sure.” Eliot kisses him, and Quentin lets himself melt into it, lets Eliot lick into his mouth until he’s panting and even harder than before. “Have fun. We’ll work out our timing better tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. “Bye. Catch lots of fish.” Eliot hesitates a moment, a smile spreading over his face. “Bye!” Quentin repeats. “Go! Me and my dick have important business to take care of!”

Eliot laughs and kisses him again and _finally_ leaves, and Quentin nearly sprints to the bed, shedding clothes as he goes.

He sighs with relief when he finally wraps his fingers around his cock. It’s been a while since he jerked off, actually. In a frankly improbable turn of events, he, Quentin Coldwater, has managed to find himself two _absolutely smoking hot_ partners who want to have all kinds of sex with him often enough that he doesn’t really ever _want_ to masturbate. But it’s not like he forgot what he likes: not too fast, focus on the head, use his other hand to play with his nipples or his balls or his hole depending on his mood.

Today he’s in the mood for playing with his hole, absolutely. After the pictures Arielle’s parting words put in his mind? _Fuck._ He does a quick one-handed tut to coat his fingers with lube and circles his entrance with two fingertips, moaning happily as the muscle flutters and twitches at the stimulation.

They’d been talking about anything and nothing, the beautiful meandering conversations they always have on mornings when she stops by. She’s brilliant and funny and driven, and over the past few months, Quentin’s been thinking a lot about if and how he can make her— a more permanent part of their lives here. Of what might work for her and him and Eliot all at the same time. And he’d mentioned it today, kind of off-handed and casual in a way he’s pretty sure she saw through before he’d even finished saying “just a random thought I had”. And— she hadn’t hated the idea. She’d _liked_ the idea.

_“We share you well enough now. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to in a longer term way. I like Eliot.”_

_“He likes you.”_

_“I know he does, though not in the same way you like me.” She had traced a finger down his cheek and across his bottom lip. “But maybe…”_

Quentin’s well into the rhythm now, rocking his hips as he strokes himself, and he shifts the angle of his other hand just right so when he rocks forward his fingers slip inside. He moans, letting his body draw them in, then pushing until he can feel himself stretching around them. The only problem with fingering himself is his arms are too short to get nice and deep. Which is fine, he likes the teasing too.

But when Arielle’s voice is on repeat in his head whispering _But maybe he’d be interested in being inside you while you’re inside me_ , he _really_ wishes he could get _deep_. Because that thought, sinking into Arielle’s tight heat while Eliot fills him up from behind with his fucking massive dick, being sandwiched between her soft, rounded body and the strong, lean muscles of his torso, is straight out of Quentin’s wet dreams. He groans out loud as he fucks his fingers past his rim, spreading them open so he can imagine Eliot’s god-it-really-is-that-big cock stretching him.

Having both of them at once would have to be the best sex he’s ever had, and that’s fucking saying something. He can picture it, kissing Arielle, rubbing her nipples with his thumbs — Eliot’s mouth on the back of his neck, biting, licking — the _sounds_ they’d all make together, slick wet noises and gasps and heartbeats. Maybe Eliot would lean around Quentin’s head, whisper to Arielle about how good Quentin’s ass feels squeezing around his cock, how wonderful an idea this was. Maybe there’s some spell they can do so they all come at the same time, Eliot and Quentin pulsing, Quentin and Arielle shuddering and squeezing, crying out until they collapse in a tangle of sated bodies.

“Fuck,” Quentin gasps, fingers working double-time inside his ass, his cock rock-hard and pulsing in his grip. “Fuck, fuck, yeah oh—” He comes, clamping down on his fingers and spurting over his belly and chest, one drip hitting his chin. That was a good fucking fantasy.

And after his conversation this morning, he realizes, he’s halfway to making it a reality. 

He cleans up, gets dressed again, and heads out to work on sorting tiles. It’s easy, mindless work by now, which is exactly what he needs. It’ll give him plenty of extra space in his brain to decide what the best way would be to broach the subject with Eliot.

|3| 

Even with the darkening charms over the daybed, Quentin still wakes not long after dawn, the summer sunlight filtering through his eyelids. He cracks one eye open, sees that the sky is still dusty pink, and makes a disgruntled noise, hiding his face under the blankets.

“My thoughts exactly,” Eliot grumbles from just above his head. “Fuck off, sun.”

Quentin sighs and squirms further into Eliot’s arms. It’s not too hot out yet, so he can snuggle as close as he wants to Eliot’s warm body without getting all sweaty, throw a leg over Eliot’s hip and curl around him.

And discover that Quentin and Eliot aren’t the only things up bright and early this morning. “Mm, hello,” he murmurs, slipping a hand down between them to caress Eliot’s erection. Eliot makes a low noise and ruts against his hand. “Someone’s awake.”

“I’m in bed with you,” Eliot says. He shifts so he can cup Quentin’s chin, tilt Quentin’s face up. “Are you really surprised?”

Quentin’s eyes flutter closed as Eliot leans in to claim his mouth, kissing him slow and sensual. Eight years they’ve been doing this, and still it’s just as exciting as that first night, out on the tiles, when Quentin had had truly no clue if what he was about to do was welcome or even a remotely good idea. Turns out it was, in fact, the best idea he’s ever had. Eliot kisses him like Quentin’s got the secret answer to all Eliot’s questions, like he can’t get enough, like he’ll die if they stop. His skin is hot and soft under Quentin’s fingers, his cock hot and hard where it presses into Quentin’s thigh through both of their linen sleep pants.

Quentin’s starting to get hard too, as Eliot’s tongue fucks into his mouth, his teeth teasing Quentin’s lower lip. But it’s too early to jump right into sex. Quentin’s still half asleep. The sun’s barely up. They have plenty of time before they have to start their day, and Quentin’s in the mood to really make the most of that time, taste every inch of Eliot’s mouth before he works his way down to taste as many inches as he can of Eliot’s dick.

Eliot seems to be on the same page. One hand cups the back of Quentin’s neck, the other arm looping around Quentin’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together. The only concession Eliot makes to his obvious arousal is a slight rocking motion, barely perceptible, not really rubbing on Quentin so much as moving their bodies in unison.

A sheen of sweat starts to collect where their bare chests meet. Quentin is breathing a little faster, making soft pleased noises against Eliot’s mouth. He’s almost ready, almost, to pull his lips away from Eliot’s and send them elsewhere. Almost. One more kiss. Or two.

The low rumble of Eliot’s moan almost covers the sound of the door scraping on the dirt, but it definitely doesn’t cover the excited shriek of “IT’S MORNING!” from the doorway. 

Quentin and Eliot freeze. “Teddy, get back here, they’re still sleeping—” Arielle whispers futilely, but it’s far too late, there are little feet pounding across the dirt yard and pudgy hands tugging at their blankets. 

“Daddy, Papa, it’s morning!” Teddy sing-songs again, his tousled brown hair just visible bobbing up and down as he tries to climb the blankets to get up to them.

Quentin grabs the covers before their son can drag them all the way off the bed and get an eyeful of what Daddy and Papa were about to be doing with their morning. Eliot huffs out a laugh, then sits up with a rueful groan and hoists Teddy up and into the bed between them, over the top of the covers.

“It _is_ morning, isn’t it?” he says, leaning down to pepper kisses all over Teddy’s giggling face. “So early. The early morning.”

“I’m so sorry, I thought I had him corralled while I got his breakfast,” Arielle says.

“Breakfast, you say.” Eliot tickles Teddy’s stomach, making him shriek and nearly headbutt Quentin in the chin as he flails backwards. “Most important meal of the day.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. He groans as he extricates himself from the bed. His dick was on its way to hard before they were interrupted, but that’s subsided enough now he can stand without embarrassing himself. He grabs Teddy under the armpits and slings him over his hip. Teddy shrieks again. What is it with three-year-olds and shrieking? “Breakfast sounds great. Why don’t you and me and Mama go eat, and then we can make an extra special one for Papa to eat when he’s ready?”

“Why can’t Papa come now?” Teddy asks as Quentin starts carrying him around the end of the daybed.

Quentin attempts not to smile at the unintentional innuendo. “Oh, I think he wants to,” he tells Teddy. “But he needs his super special breakfast.”

He looks over his shoulder as they walk towards the house. Eliot mouths _thank you_ , his eyes desperate. He was way harder than Quentin was, it wouldn’t be nearly so easy for him to calm down enough to avoid an obvious tent in his pants. And at least one of them should get off. With two adults monitoring the mischievous toddler, Eliot will actually have some privacy. Quentin truly doesn’t know how two-parent families do it, let alone single parents. Three seems like the minimum number necessary to keep this kid out of every kind of trouble he wants to get himself into.

Quentin’s hopeful that he’ll be able to pick up where they left off sometime later that day, but it doesn't pan out that way — after Papa’s Super Special Oatmeal (stirred for as long as Teddy will pay attention while they sing his favorite song, the one about a talking bunny with a lisp, with a pattern of blueberries painstakingly arranged over the top) there’s tiles to move, and butterflies to chase, and green beans to pick from the vines growing along the fence. Finally after lunch Arielle and Eliot coax Teddy inside with the promise of stories and pictures made with Papa’s magic, and Quentin crawls into the daybed, burying his face in the pillows to muffle his moans as he hurriedly jerks himself off.

It would’ve been nice to have sex, obviously. It’s not easy to find time to do that, these days, with tiny curious eyes everywhere. Quentin last fucked Arielle, what, ten days ago? When El took Teddy to market with him? He had managed to sneak in eating her out yesterday evening before they were both too tired to continue, and he and Eliot had exchanged quick handjobs a couple days before that, hidden in the woods on their way back from gathering firewood. He had really thought his days of wistfully remembering each of his very occasional sexual encounters had ended when he’d married two people who wanted to bone him at every opportunity, but. Ah, parenthood.

It was fine. He’s so tired all the time anyway, and they just have to get through a little more of this. Teddy will eventually have a longer attention span, and then he’ll be able to play unsupervised, and then someday he’ll be old enough for school with the other village children. Until then, Quentin has some late evenings and little snatches of afternoon and early morning, and in between he jerks off.

He can picture Eliot lying here earlier, stroking that huge, hard dick, one hand splayed out over the warm spot in the sheets where Quentin had been sleeping. Eyes slipping closed, tuning out the chatter and laughter coming from inside the house, thinking about Quentin’s mouth, his ass. How good it feels to slide into those slick-hot-tight spaces, how Quentin’s body clings to him, pulling him in, always wanting _more_. The pillowcase smells like Eliot, the almond oil he uses to keep his curls nice, the heady masculine scent of his sweat. Quentin groans into the pillow, imagining next time they get a moment alone, how he’ll slide under the covers and work Eliot’s cock into his throat. Breathe steady and deep through his nose, inhale the musky scent of sex, exhale and go deeper until the head is blocking off his windpipe and Eliot swears and tugs on his hair. 

Quentin comes hard and fast into his cupped hand, magics away the mess with a quick charm, and lets himself lay there for a blissful minute, relaxed and warm. Then he tucks his spent cock back into his pants and re-makes the daybed. Maybe when he goes inside, Teddy will have fallen asleep, lulled by Eliot’s deep voice and the graceful illusions he creates to accompany his words. Maybe Quentin can make out with one or both of his partners for a little while before their son wakes up. Or maybe said son will be bouncing off the walls and Quentin will have to play-wrestle him for a while so Arielle and Eliot can have two seconds of quiet time. It’s a fifty-fifty shot, really.

It’s fine. It’s okay. Teddy will be older soon, and less of a handful, and then they’ll all have plenty of time to enjoy each other, and Quentin won’t have to jerk off alone so often. They just have to get through this year, and it’ll all get better.

|4|

_If the storm does hit while I’m out, I’ll wait and come back after it clears,_ Eliot had said. _Brightfern has a tavern, I’ll get a room there for the night, and I’ll walk home in the morning,_ he’d said. But he’d left the house at noon, and would have arrived in Brightfern around three, spent a couple of hours selling their spellwork, haggled with vendors, taken forever picking out fabric to make new shirts with, maybe grabbed an early dinner at the tavern. He would have started back to the house before sunset, confident the storm wasn’t going to hit after all.

And then right as the sun dipped below the horizon it had decided that yeah, actually, it was going to storm, and now the house is almost shaking with wind and hail, the trees around the clearing whipping frantically. Thunder rolls continuously, muffled by their sound dampening charms but not drowned out, and lightning flashes so often the sky seems permanently purplish-gray. And now it’s nearly midnight and Eliot is out there somewhere, maybe dangerously close to the river, now swollen far up its banks with rain, maybe in the dark and dripping woods, maybe soaked to the bone and freezing, maybe stumbling over tree roots, staggering under the weight of his shopping, and Quentin doesn’t know where he _is_ , he can’t _get_ to him—

“Dad?” Teddy calls from the second room, the one they made by expanding the kitchen with spells when he got old enough to want his own space.

“Yeah,” Quentin calls back, and tears himself away from the window. “Are you okay? It’s loud, I know.”

“I’m fine,” Teddy says. He’s sitting up in bed, extra quilt wrapped around his shoulders. His hair sticks up in its usual cowlick in the front. “I can hear you walking around a lot, though. Are _you_ okay?”

Quentin laughs and goes to sit on the edge of his bed, smoothing down his hair and kissing him on the forehead. Teddy grumbles a little and squirms out of his grip. Now that he’s ten, he’s decided he’s _far_ too grown up and dignified to put up with his dads’ affection, even in the privacy of their own home. “I am,” he says. “Just worried about Papa.”

“He’s a magician,” Teddy says, and Quentin knows _he_ didn’t teach him that sassy tone of voice, so who did? “He probably made himself a magic house in the woods.”

“Probably,” Quentin agrees. “Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”

“Only if you do too.” Teddy glares at him, and Quentin is floored, as always, by the sight of his own features looking stubbornly back at him. Almost his own features — Teddy’s eyes are blue like his mother’s, piercing and too wise for a ten year old, seriously. 

“Fine, _dad_ ,” Quentin snarks, and Teddy allows him one more forehead kiss before he flops down into bed and snuggles under the covers.

Quentin returns to the main room of the house, fists clenching and unclenching, and jumps as another huge crash of thunder echoes through the clearing. He makes himself stay away from the window and tuck himself into bed, piling blankets on blankets until he feels weighed down.

_You can survive one night without me,_ Eliot had said, rolling his eyes. _Enjoy having the whole bed to yourself._ He’d leaned in close to Quentin’s ear, spoken softly. _Think of me while you do,_ he’d said.

Quentin’s extremely not in the mood, he’s basically in the opposite of the mood, swimming with adrenaline and anxiety. But if he has to go rescue Eliot when the storm’s done — and he _will_ rescue him, Quentin isn’t losing another spouse to this fucking awful world and its diseases and its natural disasters — he’ll need to be well-rested. He’ll need his strength. And maybe if he does one of the things Eliot said before he left, the other things, about Eliot coming home in the morning, will happen as well.

So he shoves his pants down and takes his soft dick in hand, a little too roughly at first, squeezing too hard when another clap of thunder scares him. He swears under his breath, then closes his eyes and tries to get into the rhythm of an old meditation exercise he learned in therapy decades ago. In, hold, out, pause, in— his heartbeat calms down, the crashes and howls of the weather outside fade to a murmur of white noise. He pictures Eliot’s face, smiling, laughing, nuzzling into his neck as they curl together in bed. 

_See,_ Eliot would say, if he were here now. _I was fine. You were worried for nothing. Now stroke that pretty cock for me, get yourself off so you can get some sleep._ Quentin makes a sound deep in his chest, his dick filling at the thought. _That’s it. Get hard. Play with the head. Think about how I’m going to suck it when I get home in the morning. How my tongue is going to feel circling around it. How I moan when I can taste your precome, when you’re so hard you’re leaking for me, so hard it aches._

Quentin licks his thumb and teases the slit of his now hard dick, keeping up his imaginary Eliot monologue. Eliot’s so fucking good at dirty talk, better than Quentin can ever hope to be, even after years of learning from the best. He’s so good even the version of him in Quentin’s head has Quentin thrusting into his hand in no time, nipples tight under his rucked-up shirt, balls heavy. He comes imagining Eliot’s hand covering his, letting Quentin fuck the tight circle of his fingers and murmuring encouragement in his ear, his voice rumbling like the thunder outside, but comforting, beautiful.

The orgasm does help Quentin get to sleep, at least, although the storm continues to rage outside the house. When he wakes up, though, the noise of the thunder is gone. There’s weak sunlight filtering through the curtains, and a single bird chirping tentatively in a tree outside. And there’s a soft crunch of wet sand, tiles shifting as someone walks across the half-done mosaic—

Quentin nearly hits Eliot with the front door he shoves it open so hard, and in an instant he’s wrapping Eliot in a fierce hug. Eliot yelps in surprise. “Q,” he says. “Hi. What—”

“Where did you sleep?” Quentin demands. “Did you stay in town?”

“No, I’d already left by the time it all started,” Eliot says, and Quentin’s heart twists in his chest. “But I was fine. I found a big fallen tree and used Peterborough’s Expandable Pocket to make a little shelter against its side, added some waterproofing charms to keep the rain off. Not the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, but it was small enough that it was actually pretty warm, with my body heat.”

Quentin pulls back to look at him. “You made yourself a magic house in the woods,” he says slowly. Then he laughs, relief soaking every nerve in his body, and hugs Eliot tight again.

“I did,” Eliot says. He sounds mildly confused, but desperately fond. “Can I put down our shopping now so I can greet you properly?”

With the bundle of shopping set on the table, Eliot turns and sweeps Quentin into his arms, kissing him sweetly. “Hello, my anxious darling,” he says. “I can tell you didn’t sleep well either. Let me take you to bed for a while before our son gets up and demands his presents from my market trip.”

“Hard to refuse that offer,” Quentin says, and in a moment they’re curled around each other under the pile of covers, Quentin’s forehead against Eliot’s chest, Eliot’s chin tucked over the top of his head. Quentin can’t keep himself from running his hands lightly over Eliot’s body, checking for injuries, scrapes, hypothermia, missing fingers, who knows. Eliot puts up with it for a moment. Then he grabs Quentin’s wrist, pulls it up so he can kiss the inside of Quentin’s palm.

“If you’re touching me trying to start something,” he says quietly, “I regret to inform you you’re likely to be out of luck until this afternoon. I got myself off twice last night.”

Quentin shifts so he can look up at him incredulously. “You jerked off outdoors in the middle of a catastrophic thunderstorm? _Twice_?”

“Well where else was I supposed to do it?” Eliot kisses his cheek, a feather-light brush of lips. “And what else was I supposed to do with my evening?”

“Fair point,” Quentin says. Eliot keeps kissing his face, his cheekbone, his forehead, his eyebrow. Quentin squirms under the ticklish assault. “I just did once, in bed, like a total square.”

“Mm, thinking about me?”

“Nah,” Quentin says. “The butcher, the young one with the freckles. He’s pretty cute, I bet he’d come stay and keep me company when my husband leaves me all alone at night.”

Eliot laughs and rolls over on top of Quentin, pinning him down. “Brat,” he whispers against Quentin’s neck, right below his ear. “You’re going to pay for that sass this afternoon.”

“Very much looking forward to it.”

“I can hear you making noise,” a cranky voice calls from the second room. “I’m gonna come out. Don’t be kissing.”

Eliot rolls off of Quentin to sit up in bed. “And what are you going to do if we are?”

Teddy pads out in his slippers, hair a mess, and goes right for the bundle of shopping on the table. “Puke, probably,” he says. “Did the market have candy? Did you get me some?”

“Yes it did and yes I did,” Eliot says, waving a hand to whisk the shopping off the table and up into the air out of Teddy’s reach. Teddy jumps for it and whines in frustration. “And you can have it _later_ , when you’ve finished your chores after school. Go wash your face and get ready, Petra will be by to walk with you before you know it.”

“You should wash your face too,” Teddy shoots back. “You’ve got dirt on your forehead.” But he goes, heading for the washbasin outside that Quentin engraved with warming charms.

Eliot does actually have dirt on his forehead. Quentin hadn’t even noticed. He reaches up to brush it off. “How did we end up with a kid who’s such a snarky pain in the ass?” he mutters.

“Quentin,” Eliot says levelly. “Think about what you just said. And now think about the fact that our child is fifty percent your DNA, and that it’s been the two of us co-parenting him since he was four. He had absolutely no chance of _not_ being a snarky pain in the ass.”

Quentin sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I thought you might say that.”

|+1|

On day one of being empty nesters they’re far too preoccupied with each other to make a real dinner — instead they eat bread and cheese and cured venison sausage off one plate in bed, legs tangled, laughing and joking and feeding each other bites like the sappiest rom-com newlyweds. When they’re done, Quentin moves the empty plate aside, and kisses Eliot long and slow, and sets about giving him the railing of his life as payback for the equally good railing Eliot had given him as soon as Teddy was out of sight.

On day two of being empty nesters they realize they might have overdone it yesterday.

“Getting old is truly awful,” Eliot grumbles, reaching laboriously for his toes to try and stretch his hamstrings. “Why must time insist on continuing to pass?”

“You’d rather it loop around, and we can relive the same year over and over again?” Quentin asks. He’s on his stomach on the bed, letting himself melt into the mattress. His back hurts. His neck hurts. His _ass_ hurts. That never used to happen when they fucked all day, let alone when they only fucked _twice_.

“Depends on the year.” Eliot flops back onto the bed with a groan. “Last year, with the freak spring blizzard? Not a chance. The year you were twenty-six, though, I’d do that one again.” He slides a hand down Quentin’s back until he can cup Quentin’s ass in his broad palm. “As long as the loop starts _after_ the big fight.”

“You mean the one I had to engineer so you’d finally admit we were an actual couple and not just questmates with benefits? That fight?”

“That fight, yes,” Eliot says amiably. “The sex we had for like a month after that, god.” He squeezes Quentin’s ass, eliciting a pleased hum, then slides his thumb along Quentin’s crack. 

“No bigger turn on than you catching feelings, honestly,” Quentin says. Eliot’s thumb dips to circle his hole, and he winces a little. “Nope, no, sorry. Still sore.”

Eliot goes back to gently massaging Quentin’s ass cheek. “Me too,” he admits. “I wonder if something’s off with our lube spell.”

“Or we’re just not as young as we used to be,” Quentin says. “Assholes age too.”

“So we take a day off from pounding each other,” Eliot says. He squeezes Quentin’s ass. A pleasant warmth is building at the base of Quentin’s spine, starting to overwhelm the soreness of his muscles. “Somehow we’ll survive.”

Quentin shifts to his side and leans in for a kiss, cupping the back of Eliot’s neck. They kiss for a long, unhurried moment. Quentin wants him — Quentin _always_ wants him — but with Teddy out of the house, with both of them firmly settled into their routines and their home and the rhythm of life here in Fillory, they have nothing but time.

He breaks the kiss when he hears a rustle of sheets, the whispery slide of skin on skin: Eliot’s got a hand wrapped around his dick and is stroking himself slowly, coaxing that gorgeous big cock to hardness. Quentin smiles and kisses the underside of Eliot’s jaw. Eliot laughs a little when Quentin’s beard tickles the curve of his neck, and Quentin scrapes his teeth against the ticklish spot to chase away the sensation.

“How do you want me?” he asks. He licks Eliot’s neck. “Wanna fuck my mouth?”

Eliot moans and twists his head around to capture Quentin’s lips again. “Not right now,” he says. “Later, probably, but now — I’d really like to watch you touch yourself.”

Quentin grins. “Oh yeah?” He drags his palm flat up his thigh, heart leaping at the way Eliot’s eyes track his motion. Thirty years of this, and being so obviously wanted by this absurdly hot man hasn’t stopped being amazing. He takes himself in hand and starts to stroke. 

Eliot makes a low noise in his throat and shifts closer, bringing their foreheads together. “God,” he says, “you’re so fucking beautiful.”

Quentin half-laughs. He knows it’s futile trying to convince Eliot otherwise. He’s tried for decades; if it hasn’t happened already, it’s not happening now. “All for you, baby. Every day. Or as often as I can, now, anyway.”

“Mm,” Eliot says. “It was every day when you were twenty-six.” His grin breaks into a gasp as he starts moving his hand faster, tightening his grip as he slides his fingers up his cock. “Sometimes twice a day.”

“I couldn’t help it, you’re so fucking hot.” Quentin laughs. “God, before we ever started fucking I was jerking off like twice a day, thinking about you putting tiles down shirtless, or bent over in front of the fireplace. And I was obsessed with your dick.”

“You’d seen my dick, what, once, at that point? While completely fucked up?”

“Yeah, I really didn’t remember anything about it. But you made some joke about it at some point, and then I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, like— what if it’s huge? Could I take it? Would you ever _want_ me to take it?”

“Yes and yes,” Eliot purrs. “I was getting up early and going into the woods to get off, thinking about your fucking mouth, the way you licked your fingers clean instead of using a napkin like a civilized person.”

Quentin watches Eliot’s eyes go dark as he lets go of his cock and brings his fingers up to his mouth to suck on them. “What, like this?”

Eliot shudders. “Like that.” Quentin swirls his tongue over his fingers, licks up his palm so when he takes himself in hand again, it slides so fucking nicely. “I had myself so convinced you weren’t doing it on purpose, that you had no fucking clue how sexy you were.”

“I mean, I don’t think I did know, really?” Quentin laughs a little at Eliot’s incredulous snort, tips forward to kiss him, can only hold it for a second until he breaks it to gasp as he thumbs over the head of his cock. “Maybe it was subconscious. I don’t think I’ve ever been sexy on purpose.”

“You have an intense natural talent, then,” Eliot says. Quentin is entranced watching Eliot’s hand move on his dick, the slide of the foreskin up over the rosy pink head. “It was even worse once we started fucking. I wanted to be ready whenever you decided to jump me, so I couldn’t go jerk off. But I _knew_ how good you were with your mouth, I knew about all the delicious noises you make.” He leans forward to kiss Quentin greedily. “Whenever you said my name and your voice was hoarse, I knew it was because you’d either been swallowing my cock or screaming while I fucked you.”

“I do have seasonal allergies, too,” Quentin teases, then moans halfway through his laugh as Eliot tongues at his earlobe, bites down gently. “And you could’ve jerked off, probably. You had fucking _insane_ stamina. I felt like I could just _look_ at you and you’d be hard again.”

“You absolutely could.” Eliot sighs, his breath hot against Quentin’s neck. “Not the case anymore, unfortunately. I still love you looking, but it’s not quite as automatic as it used to be.”

Quentin cranes his neck back so their mouths can meet for a sloppy kiss. Eliot’s hips jerk a little, making his knuckles brush against Quentin’s. “Doesn’t matter. I’m still obsessed with your dick.”

“I’m so glad,” Eliot pants. He tangles the fingers of his free hand in Quentin’s hair, and Quentin sucks in a sharp breath and picks up the pace on his cock. “Perfect. You’re fucking perfect.”

Quentin moans and dives back in for a kiss, and Eliot holds his hair tight, holds their mouths together, just enough space between their bodies for both their hands to keep working frantically. It’s so fucking good, like this. So good to have someone Quentin doesn’t have to worry about impressing anymore, who he can just make out with and jerk off with and be sure that that’s good enough, that Eliot will want to do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.

“God, Q,” Eliot whispers desperately, long moments later. His hips have started jerking forward again, ruining Quentin’s rhythm when their hands jar together but Quentin doesn’t mind, he wants Eliot’s come all over him. “Gonna come watching you—”

“Do it,” Quentin whispers back, “come on my hard cock, fucking, yes, show me—” and it objectively doesn’t make any sense but it sends Eliot over the edge anyway, gasping and moaning and spilling between their bodies, coating Quentin’s stomach and hand and thighs.

Eliot jerks himself slowly through the last aftershocks, panting, his forehead pressed against Quentin’s. And as soon as his big hand stops moving, Quentin swipes his hand through the streaks of Eliot’s come across his body and strokes himself fast and hard and just right, fingers sliding over his cock with the expertise of decades. Eliot kisses his cheek and his jaw and his neck and his mouth, and Quentin comes gasping a few minutes later.

When they’re cleaned up and tucked back into bed with another plate of cheese and bread and sausage, because it’s well past breakfast time by now and neither of them feels like leaving the other’s side long enough to cook lunch, Quentin asks, “So, bets on when we actually make it outside again to try another pattern? My money’s on tomorrow at the earliest.”

“The _very_ earliest,” Eliot says. He presses a slice of sausage against Quentin’s lips, kisses him on the nose when Quentin opens to accept it.

Quentin swallows and picks up a piece of cheese. “We’ve gotta get back to it sometime, though. Since time is actually insisting on continuing to pass, and we still have to solve this thing.”

Eliot looks thoughtful as he finishes his bite and sits silently for a long moment. Then he murmurs to Quentin, “I have a confession.”

“Yeah?” Quentin asks, around a mouthful of cheese. He swallows. “What’s that?”

“I don’t actually care if we solve this thing.” Eliot trails a finger down Quentin’s cheek, through his beard, under his chin, tipping his face up. “Time can go on passing, that’s fine. But I’m glad we haven’t finished yet, because every day we don’t is another day I get to keep this.”

Quentin curls his fingers around the back of Eliot’s neck, feeling his pulse deep and steady under his thumb, and pulls him in for a kiss. He tastes like sausage and coarse bread, like cozy winter nights and bright spring mornings. He tastes like home.


End file.
